Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers-The Story of Success, gives a unique view on the subject of success. Gladwell disparages the standard “rags to riches” stories, where an individual can rise to success solely because of individual merit and talent. He argues that one’s circumstances and external forces hold a significant amount of importance in regards to achieving success. Through Gladwell’s analysis on success stories such as Bill Gates and the Beatles, he deems a mixture of one’s upbringing, opportunities, practice, and timing to be the true underlying factors to why some succeed while others fail. f An individual’s first advantages to rise above their peers begins with their childhood, crucial as “success is the result of what sociologists
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They “actively ‘foster and assess a child’s talent, opinions and skills” (104) and this in turn, gives their child an advantage on practicing and developing skills, dramatically widening the division between kids with an advantage of class versus those without. Because these children are wealthier, they receive better schooling, attention, and treatment, allowing them to master “the sense of entitlement … an attitude perfectly suited to succeeding in the modern world” (108). Lewis Terman’s study of a group of child geniuses called “Termites,” exhibit the value of cultural and class advantage. Group A Termites were the top 20% who became lawyers, physicians and engineers. Group C Termites were the bottom 60% who only eight out of 150, earned a graduate degree. If all these children were dubbed as geniuses, why did only a few succeed? It is quite simple, the ones …show more content…
Asian countries, for an example, arise from a culture that prioritizes diligence and believes that “no one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich” (224). China specifically, placed an insurmountable value on rice as it became the measure for an individual’s worth, it became almost obligatory for rice farmers to constantly improve their yields by becoming more logical. However, tending to rice paddies is not an easy task, it involves constant attention and modifications in order to produce more rice. The act of tending to rice paddies was not considered to be slave work but meaningful work. The difference brought out the mentality that hard work leads to success, an attitude instilled in Asian cultures. This mind-set becomes an advantage when it comes to children of Asian descent practicing and practicing hours on end as a norm. This particular cultural advantage is seen in Asian children dominating “their Western counterparts at mathematics” (230). Students from countries such as, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and Singapore, outperformed Western students because of their ancestor’s ideology of hard work is imperative. These children have a built-in advantage because of
They “actively ‘foster and assess a child’s talent, opinions and skills” (104) and this in turn, gives their child an advantage on practicing and developing skills, dramatically widening the division between kids with an advantage of class versus those without. Because these children are wealthier, they receive better schooling, attention, and treatment, allowing them to master “the sense of entitlement … an attitude perfectly suited to succeeding in the modern world” (108). Lewis Terman’s study of a group of child geniuses called “Termites,” exhibit the value of cultural and class advantage. Group A Termites were the top 20% who became lawyers, physicians and engineers. Group C Termites were the bottom 60% who only eight out of 150, earned a graduate degree. If all these children were dubbed as geniuses, why did only a few succeed? It is quite simple, the ones …show more content…
Asian countries, for an example, arise from a culture that prioritizes diligence and believes that “no one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich” (224). China specifically, placed an insurmountable value on rice as it became the measure for an individual’s worth, it became almost obligatory for rice farmers to constantly improve their yields by becoming more logical. However, tending to rice paddies is not an easy task, it involves constant attention and modifications in order to produce more rice. The act of tending to rice paddies was not considered to be slave work but meaningful work. The difference brought out the mentality that hard work leads to success, an attitude instilled in Asian cultures. This mind-set becomes an advantage when it comes to children of Asian descent practicing and practicing hours on end as a norm. This particular cultural advantage is seen in Asian children dominating “their Western counterparts at mathematics” (230). Students from countries such as, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and Singapore, outperformed Western students because of their ancestor’s ideology of hard work is imperative. These children have a built-in advantage because of